Dwyane Wade on How the NBA Use to Be a “Thinking Man’s Game”, But Now If You Can Catch a Lob You Can Get $200 Million

D Wade wasn’t shading anyone, but you can definitely tell he felt some type of way about how basketball is being played now in this interview with NBA.com.

“We’re at a place right now in the league where if you have talent, you can succeed. And I’m not knocking it. It’s just what it is. When I came in it was different. It was more of a thinking man’s game. It was different rules to the game, you know, with hand-checking and everything. It was more of a man’s league, per say. But now, if you have talent in this league, you’ve got one-on-one abilities, you can succeed. If you’ve got one talent, just one thing you do special, you can be great. If that talent is just setting the pick and roll and then jumping as high as I can for a lob, you can do it and you can make $200 million doing it. It’s just a different day. And there’s nothing wrong with it. The game changes for every generation. So I hope my son can get a little of this NBA action, because I think it’s going to be a really fun era to play in and be a part of.

“Sooner or later something will click, some team, some coach or some transcendent player will come along and they’re going to change the game. … So you really just never know where the game is going next. But rest assured wherever it goes, it’s going to a fun ride for everybody.”

As Wade has gotten older, he has had to be more of a thinker because his athleticism isn’t what it use to be.